Woodeye

Nice - times gone by. Obviously pre-OSHA and the vilification of smoking - light your pipe with a red hot axe head blank, manly indeed.

Very cool stuff. I need to find a way to break out of what I'd call the "traditional" blacksmith pieces. Hooks and leafs and fire pokers and the like. Even if I could make those with cleaner more sculpted lines I'd feel better.

I have a store bought suede Bib type - got if from Centaur Forge and it has worked great but is heavy. I do have three tanned deer hides in the basement that I keep think about as raw material for a custom made (by me) apron but whenever I have time for Blacksmithing activities I just go out and smith and the leather sits - the day will come though for that project, the leather has a long shelf life so I'm not to worried, maybe when I destroy my current apron I'll be motivated to do some leather work - maybe

Good lookin' Dog too - French Brittany?

Thanks - More knife than I thought it was though. Its so hard really judge size in a photo, at least for me. I take it you epoxied the tang, I can't see any pins.

Nice job - what kind of tang did you use and what are the blade dimensions? It looks to be sized to be a great all around hunter. I really like how the wood, copper and damascus colors go together.

I have a couple favorite hammers that I like to rotate during a session so my hammer hand muscles get a bit of variation. For me the worst thing to do is hammer with a glove on - I forget to take it off sometimes after doing something else that needed two gloved hands and have found that the unconscious extra grip strength that is needed to overcome the slip of the glove fatigues my hand and forearm muscles like right now

Well done indeed - now the real fun begins!

I'm likin the lastest hold down tools I've seen here recently - might be nice to string together if that hasn't happened in the past already. These are motivating me to come up with something more creative that my old bicycle chain with a window sash wieght hanging from it. Might help me stop burning my fingers when I grab the chain to lift it up on the second heat :)

I'm a big fan of 5160 coil spring material as well. I get all kinds of unknown "hardenable" steel from my local scrap yard but a couple good sized coil springs go a long way and once I have the hardening/tempering figured out it goes much easier as I make tools - and the price is so right. I know there are much better steels but not that I can buy on any given Saturday morning in my neck of the woods.

Nice Job - Add some tool holders and maybe a hammer holder or two and some kind of third hand set-up and you'll me a smithin' fool

Cool - I've had one of these on my "gotta have" list for a long time but can never seem to get the bucks together long enough to pull it off - have fun with that baby

Very Nice - I've made a rose here and there and leafs galour but working it all together into a piece like is something I have yet to tackle - well done! I am sure your aunt will cherish this for a long time to come

Nathan's hammers are very nice indeed - you should enjoying it for a long time. Usually I give my new hammers a couple of workouts before I do anything to them. When I do decide to dress them a bit of modify the handles I tend to do it very carefully and a little bit a a time until its "just so" Woodeye